A couple of popular North Carolina bands have brought on new bass players this past few days.

Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road have announced that Eddie Biggerstaff will handle the low end for them on the road. Eddie spent several years with Blue Ridge and has performed and recorded with Herschel Sizemore, Larry Rice, and until just recently, with Darin & Brooke Aldridge.

Jordan is especially pleased that with the addition to Eddie, Carolina Road is now an all-North Carolinian outfit. Ben Greene plays banjo, Josh Goforth fiddle, Tommy Long guitar, with Lorraine on mandolin and lead vocals.

Despite having been playing less than six years, Anderson was awarded a Kyser Memorial Scholarship to attend ETSU. In addition to his new gig with the Aldridges, he will continue his studies and perform with the ETSU Bluegrass Pride Band as his schedule allows.

He joins Darin on guitar and Brooke on mandolin, whose duet vocals form the backbone of the group. Longtime banjoist Chris Bryant retains his spot, and bluegrass pixie Rachel Renee Johnson plays fiddle.

The word “counterintuitive” has definitely earned its place among the most overused words and phrases of the last 10 years, like “frankly” (the favorite of politicians, and that may cover the last 20 years), “twerk,” “going forward,” “at the end of the day,” and “rock […]

I have to declare upfront that I had a peek at an early draft of this book. Also, over the years (from about 1981), I have watched Reid gather together the building materials that have gone towards the writing of The Music of the Stanley Brothers. […]

Blue Mafia really caught my attention with their 2013 debut CD, My Cold Heart. It boasted of three strong lead singers, and a powerful new songwriting voice, plus the sort of dynamic guitar playing that sets the tracks on fire. Over the past two years, the […]

In debates surrounding regional chauvinism in the roots of bluegrass music, New York’s Gibson Brothers are often posited as modern exemplars of a sound that isn’t dominated by cultural and musical conventions of the American south. It’s true that their music is based on a brother […]

Largely thanks to cheerful love songs like Corn, Lonely Ends Where Love Begins, and That’s Just Me Loving You, husband and wife duo Darin and Brooke Aldridge have become known as the “Sweethearts of Bluegrass.” While there are a few love songs on their latest […]

Church in the Wildwood isn’t a recently written song. It was actually composed in 1857 by a young music teacher named William S Pitts as a result of a June visit to Bradford, Iowa. Pitts was on a stagecoach ride that stopped at the town. […]

Blue Highway’s Wayne Taylor started playing guitar when he was 13. Due to some health problems he spent a couple years in a wheelchair. Taylor had a cousin who played and he showed him a couple chords and he took it from there. After recovering […]

This year, I promise not to fire my bandmate, Pete. Don’t laugh. Okay, laugh. Every couple of years I terminate him. It’s because we are such good friends, know each other inside-out, and love each other like the closest of siblings – and when we […]

Today marks Doyle Lawson’s 52nd year in bluegrass music. After serving stints with Jimmy Martin, J.D. Crowe, and the Country Gentlemen, Doyle has spent the past thirty-six years leading his own band, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. Quicksilver has been one of the consistent and influential […]

It’s hard to keep a good man down in bluegrass music (although we all do like to be lonesome now and then), and radio broadcaster Larry Roberts is a prime example of that. Roberts has been a DJ for almost thirty years, and for the […]

Bluegrass is sometimes viewed as music for old fogies. The emphasis on tradition, the lack of electric instruments, the sheer lonesomeness of it all – it’s not Katy Perry or Justin Beiber, that’s for sure. In the past several years, however, it seems like more […]

When we think of “radio voices,” smooth, rich, polished tones come to mind – think Casey Kasem. Broadcaster Jim Fisher was a little surprised when, years ago, someone told him that his voice was well-suited for the radio. As he tells it, he was emceeing […]